The Place That You Knew
by underneathasycamore
Summary: Prequel to Ghosts That We Knew. Can be read as a stand alone. A story of different perspectives through the second wizarding war. One-Shot.


**Authors Note:**

**So I actually started to write this before ****_Ghosts that we knew_****. This was what lead to that. It took me a little while to finish but I'm rather please with how it turned out. It is still a stand alone piece, so you don't have to read this to understand ****_Ghosts that we knew_**** and visa-verse. **

**Enjoy! And please let me know that you think!**

* * *

**The Place That You Left**

August 1, 1997 11:03 PM

_The ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming._

* * *

May 2, 1998 07:23 PM

_Neville Longbottom is it, how's mum and dad?_

It never gets easier, not having a mum and a dad. I mean, I know that they are still here, physically, but it's not the same. When I was a little, I used to visit them every day with my Gran. There would be sometime when she would cry, but that was usually when I tried to hug my mum or sit on my dad's lap. I kept thinking to telling my seven year old self that maybe this would be the time that dad would recognized me, maybe this would be the time that mum woke up and hugged me back. But that time never happened. Eventually I stopped trying. Now when I go and see them I go by myself and sit on a chair between their beds.

Regardless of which side of the war they are one, most people are fighting for the future. A chance at a peaceful life, or pureblood supremacy. A chance to live. But I am fighting for the past, for the parents that I never had, for what they died for all those years ago. I am fighting for the sixteen years that my parents had ripped away from them.

_People die every day. Friends, family…_

_Fred, Remus, Tonks…they didn't die in vain… _

_It's not over!_

* * *

July 23, 1997 10:47 AM

_They're convinced they're called Wendell and Monica Wilkins…_

We love our Hermione. Our love for her has never changed. Not when we found out she was a witch, not when she told us of all the adventures and dangerous things she had done (though I'm sure there are ones that she hasn't told us), and not now when she's telling us that we're in danger. There are things that we don't understand about her world, things that we probably never will. Like how they still use owls to communication, haven't they hear of a telephone?

We always knew that our Hermione was bright. I can still remember her first steps, her first words, and her first book; how she always has this thirst for _more_. I suppose that it's fitting that she turned out to have magical blood. This world never would have been enough for her. I could see that from the very first year that she was gone, how she came back with stories that she couldn't get out fast enough, more spells, and books, and trinkets to show than we could imagine. And the fire that this new world brought to her eyes, I hope nothing ever takes it away from her.

But I am not naïve. I know that there is darkness and evil in every world, magical or not. And while I haven't seen the evil of her world with my own eyes, I know that it exists. I have heard her stories grow darker over the years. I have seen her eyes grow cautious as she watches for our reactions, trying to gauge what to say and what to hold back. I'm sure that just as any teenager, she hasn't told us everything; I wouldn't expect her to. I just hope that she has told us enough, that we are not foolish in our hope that she will be come back to us after she finishes her final year at Hogwarts.

There have been more and more stories in the news lately about families being murdered. The police officers want the public to believe that it's a series of murders, that they don't have any leads yet. But John and I know better, Hermione has told us who is really behind all of these mysterious deaths in our world. They are called _Death Eaters_ and they are killing people like us and like our _daughter_ for a wizard called Voldemort. It's a dangerous time, but we will never leave our child to fight this battle on her own. We may not have magical powers, but we will never leave her no matter how much she asks us to. And that is what John and I plan on telling her over morning tea; we will not leave her side.

_Wendell and Monica Wilkins don't know that they've got a daughter, you see._

* * *

April 15, 1998 03:12 AM

_If I brought them back here now, they'd probably not recognize any of it._

On January 30 1933, Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany, a nation that consists of 566,000 Jewish citizens. He creates a team of followers called Nazis. Over that next twelve months Nazis work to create a crisis atmosphere to enable Hitler to be given more power by the government. They burn buildings, books, and slowly weed out those of Jewish heritage from positions of power. In the following year, Jews are banned from the labour front, denied health insurance, and prohibited from getting legal qualifications.

On August 1 1934, current president Paul Von Hidenburg dies allowing Hitler to take position of Fuhrer, absolute leader of Germany and its people. In the following year of his Presidency, Jews are banned from serving in the military, and law is passed that can enforce abortions on women in order to prevent the passing of hereditary diseases. On September 15, the Nuremberg Race Law is passed. This law deprives Jews of their citizenship rights, and forbids them from having sexual relations with Aryans, or those that are not Jewish. Couples wishing to marry and have children are required to submit to a medical examination before being granted permission. Additional decrees are issued, and Jews are eventually outlawed completely; their rights as human beings taken away.

In the next six years, the Jewish are forced out of health care, law, and government positions. They are forced to identify themselves as their religion through identification cards, marked passports and changed names. By the end of 1939, many are forced to wear the Star of David on their clothing. Those that were held prisons in the Auschwitz concentration camp receive serial number tattoos. The Nazis' invade Denmark, Norway, France, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Greece in a span of two years. Somewhere between five and six million Jews die; killed through starvation, gassing, incineration, disease, and mass killings. These numbers do not include victims of Hitler that were not of the Jewish faith.

These are the thoughts that run through Hermione's head when she cannot sleep at night, when the scar on her arm burns like it's new. The idea that one man can inflict his beliefs on so many people, and have them do the things that they did – Muggles and Wizards really aren't so different. Hitler had millions killed because of the religion that they believed in. Voldemort kills those that stand against him and absolute power, those he deems unworthy, _mudbloods_. People like _her_, for no reason other than who her blood came from.

Muggle villages have been burned to the ground. Muggleborns are being hunted and killed for blood purity. Those with information or who stand against the death eaters are captured and tortured. So many have been lost, and she knows that the blood shed has not finished. She can feel a miserable swell beginning to form in her chest. She spent so many years _learning_, and for what? What does it matter when everyone continues to make the same mistakes over and _over._ She's slow to stand from the bed she's been laying in at Shell Cottage, and as she creeps down the stairs she can still feel her legs shake from the _crutiatis'_. The wind brings the sea air tumbling through her hair and it washes over her skin like a blanket. She can taste the salt on her lips.

Waves rise and roll towards her, but she can't bring herself to move when the water rushes past her soaking her pajama bottoms. There is a tiredness in her bones that no eighteen year old should feel. She thinks of her parents and feels a great deal of pity for her worlds, and for herself, for she feels as though she belongs to neither. And now, she belongs to no one.

_Not the trees, not the river… not even me…_

* * *

September 2, 1999 12:16 AM

_How you feeling, Georgie?_

_…Saint-like._

I know you're there, Fredie. I can feel you in my bones, pushing me, puling me up. I know that it's you who gets me out of bed in the morning, who keeps me working during the day, and keeping me sane during the night. You were always looking after me; my twin, my shadow. Merlin, I miss you.

When I lost my ear, the healer talked to me about phantom limb when I lost my ear. He said that sometimes I might still feel it's still there, like it never left. That sometimes it might feel like I have to scratch my ear, or tuck my hair behind it. But that never happened, not until I lost you. All the time it felt like you were still here. I still make enough coffee for two in the morning, and buy too many eggs. Sometimes I toss something behind me and forget that you aren't there to catch it any more until it hear it crash onto the floor. But being around mum is the worst. I think she must feel it too, because when she calls everyone for dinner she still says both of our names.

_I'm holey._

* * *

May 2, 1998 01:47 AM

_You have your mother's eyes._

A warm white light surrounds him. The pain from the wide pierces in his torso begin to fade away, he can breathe again, and he wonder if this is what dying feels like; Peace, warmth, freedom. All the things that he had been working his whole life for and never received.

The white light begins to dim, and for a brief moment he is struck with the fear that someone had saved him, that he has been brought back to the war. _Please, let me be. _Suddenly a landscape of a field is brought before him; with a creek, a willow tree, and _her_. It takes all he has not to kneel down and weep.

"Lily."

The wind blows her hair as she smiles at him, she is as radiant as she ever was, and his heart beats in a way that is hasn't in many years.

"Hello, Severus. Come, sit next to me."

And he does without question because his mind is still full of white fog that doesn't let him understand much but it lets him _see_ and _feel_. And all he can see and feel is her. They talk about everything, just like they used to when they were children. They talk about when they first met, and how she was wasn't afraid of him at first like he thought, rather she was afraid that he would see what she was and hate her like all the other children did; like her sister did. He told her that he actually did go to her and James' wedding, but that he arrived late and only stayed long enough to see that she was truly happy. He tells her about Harry. How her has her eyes _and_ her stubbornness. How he was sorry about how he had treated him over the past few years, but that he had to in order to keep him safe. She lets him continue even though she knows all about how doing the right things doesn't always feel that way.

He begins tells her that he has done terrible things, that he's hurt innocent people, and killed people to, but she hushes him with a soft sound. _There's no reason to ruin a wonderful moment with the unpleasentries that come along with doing what you had no choice in doing, Severus. _

A breeze shifts through the branches of the willow and scatters the tree's pale thin leaves around them. He grasps one between his fingers, feeling the smooth skin on one side and the raised vein on the other. He wonders how this can be possible, how he can be _here_ with _her_ when she's been dead for over sixteen years. It sinks into his mind suddenly and he feels as though he has been through into the icy Black Lake. She's dead, and now so is he, that maybe this is his afterlife. That maybe if you try to do good when you're alive, you get the things that you truly wanted but had to sacrifice when you die. Maybe, you get to be happy.

It feels so much like the last time. He is still the one weeping except this time, she is the one holding him.

_Albus Serverus, you were names for two headmasters of Hogwarts. _

_One of them was a Slytherin and he was probably the bravest man I ever knew._

* * *

April 19, 2013 01:12 PM

_It's not the same place that you left._

Hogwarts is home to me. And the people in it are my friends and my family, even if they don't always act like it. I know that people find me a bit strange, but they don't see things the way that I do. So many people only look at the bad things that happen that they forget to remember the good. They forget to appreciate who and what they have, and then it's gone. That's what happened with my mum. When I was a little girl, she would run through fields with me chasing after fairies, and braid my hair in the morning. And then she was gone and I couldn't see the fairies anymore.

_It's okay, neither am I._

* * *

May 2, 2013 8:22 PM

_While you are here, your house will be something like your family._

She watches her students, these children that she has watched grow up into young men and women (far too fast). She remembers as they were sorted for the first time, first spells, first busts and detentions. She remembered how being as Hogwarts used to bring out the sparkle in their young eyes, when magic still brought them all so much happiness. They found out about the darkness that hides behind the magic far too soon. I fear, that for many of them it will be the last thing they see.

What happened to us? Here we are, sending these children into war alongside Aurors and Ministry Officials nearly three times their age, knowing that not everyone will return. A deep sadness stills her bones when she realizes that she will be placing flower on gravestones of the students before she can put a diploma in their hands. The coward in her who wants to keep her children safe wishes that they would run and hide. They were so young, so willing, so foolish; full with the feeling that because they were fighting for what was right, that they would leave with their lives. And she was the one who had helped to make them feel that way. Safe, loyal, invincible.

_He's just a boy. _

* * *

April 21, 1998 3:35 PM

_I don't want your help! Don't you understand? I have to do this! I have to kill you… Or he's going to kill me!_

If someone were to ask Draco Malfoy why he changed sides, he would tell them that it was because of the birds. In fact, he told Granger just that once. He enjoyed the confused look on her face when she didn't understand something (for once). And despite what everyone else thinks, it's the truth. He had been watching a hawk stalk its prey. Eventually, it dove into a flock of small birds and snatched one up. The ones that were lucky enough not to be caught took off in flight, desperate to get away from the predator. His eyes traveled along with the flock as they flew to the east before he looked to see where the hawk had gotten off to. It was then that she saw that there were three birds from the flock who did not flee. Instead they banded together to chase after the great bird in an attempt to save their comrade from becoming lunch.

He knew that the three smaller birds would be of no match for the great hawk. He had stronger and larger wings that would propel him across the sky farther and faster than their smaller ones. Its eye sight was far superior, and its beak and claws could surely rip their feathers right out before making them into a meal as well. Yet still they fought.

As he was about to leave nature to take its course and return to his room in the Manson, he heard wild frantic chirping. His Seeker senses honed in on a bird that broke free from the flock and began speeding towards the hawk and its pursuers. _Stupid bird_, he thought, _you'll never be able to stop him_. And with that he turned and left the balcony.

_How do you know what I am?!_

* * *

May 2, 1998 08:46 PM

_You'll stay with me?_

There is so much blood in the air, that you could taste the copper on your tongue. The smell of it stains the air around the battlefield. The smoke from discharged spells is so think that it's hard to know if you are going farther into enemy territory or retreating. It's messy, it's terrifying, and you just want to make it out alive. You just want to make it _home_. You know that fighting was the right thing to do, the brave thing, but that doesn't it any easier, doesn't make you any more ready.

_Until the end._

* * *

May 2, 1998 5:02 AM

_But he will know why I died and I hope he will understand I was trying to make a world in which he could live a happier life. _

It's early morning and the battlefield is still smouldering. There are body counts to be made, news to be broken, and bodies to be buried. The war is finally over, and yet these is still so much to do. Winning doesn't mean that you can rest, and losing doesn't mean that you will be punished. It should, but often that is not the case. But what everyone can do, is breathe. Fill their lungs with oxygen until they feel like they are going to burst. And then do it again.

She wants to eat, sleep, and cry. She's not sure which one she wants more or first. Her stomach is used to the hunger pains. She would only dare to let the tears escape after she's behind a locked door, and there is still no time for sleep. Instead, she takes a deep breath and goes to where she is needed. Reading Methods of Magical Healing over the summer came in handy, so many wounded and not enough supplies or personnel. Pomphery had told her that St. Mungo's was already over capacity and only taking those closest to death. Hogwarts wasn't the only place to be attacked, just the central area. Surrounding areas had also been attacked by Death Eaters and an attempt to surround the property and infiltrate the grounds from all sides.

Its hours before everyone is seen. They ran out of supplies completely half way through, and had to do the best they could with spells and spare cloth. There will be plenty of scars, and plenty more healing in the time to come. Now that her mind has nothing to actively focus on, she can feel the exhaustion that she has been putting off (for days, weeks, or _months,_ she doesn't remember). All she wants is a place to sleep in peace.

Harry left with McGonagall some time ago, for reasons she did not know, and the Weasly's had gone home to grieve in private, they had given enough. And so there she was, alone and with no one to belong to, solving a problem. There would come a time when she would try to bring her parent's back. All summer she had been pushing down the fear that she had pushed her intelligence too far. Panic rose like steam in her throat. What if the charm couldn't be reversed, and they never remembered her? What if it could be reversed and they hated her for casting it? Her mind began to buzz as it always did when it flooded with questions. All these questions and no answers to them. For now, she was just the girl who no one remembered.

"Granger."

She's quick to turn, the adrenaline from the battle still strong in her veins; the exhaustion will come later. She doesn't offer any biting remarks, no curses or hexes, just a puzzled look. He takes a quick glance at her arm before continuing, "An apology won't change what my family and I put you through. There is nothing that I can do to change what happened. But one thing I can change is myself. And I felt that you deserved to know that… You will never be _that_ _word_ to me again."

A lump swells up in her throat as this young man stood before her, no longer the mislead boy that she had grown up with, but she manages to push the words out because this was _change. _

"I'm glad you took your second chance, Malfoy, and I look forward to seeing what you do with it."

And then she's gone, with the squeeze to his forearm so quick that he's not sure it actually happened. He doesn't know what he will do with his life yet. He doesn't even know what he will do tomorrow, or where he will sleep tonight. But as his shoe hits a fallen piece of debris, he knows that he will build something_, anything_. Even if it is himself, from the ground up.

_We're all human, aren't we? Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving._

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**_If you have read this far, please take a minute to write me a review and tell me your thoughts. I love hearing from each and every one of you! Thanks!_**


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